Etched In Blue

hi. this is marty from blue lightning tv.i'm going to show you how to transform a logo or text into gold leaf and stencil it on frosted glass. you can use any image you want for your background, however, if you'd like to use this one, i provided its link in the video's description or project files. the first step is convert your background into a smart object, so we can modify it non-destructively withsmart filters or even replace it with another background without having to redo any of thefilters that we'll be adding to it. to do this, click the icon at the upper, right ofthe layers panel and click "convert to smart object". you know a layer is a smart objectwhen you see this icon at the lower right,

corner of its thumbnail. go to filter andfilter gallery. open the "distort" folder, click "glass" and choose "frosted". i'll makethe distortion: 3 and the smoothness: 1, however, if you're using a different image, you maywant to adjust these amounts depending on your image's size and resolution. i'd like to soften it a little, so i'll go to filter, blur and gaussian blur. blur it 20 pixels and click ok. at this point, your image will look too soft, so we'll reduce the blur's opacity by double-clicking on the icon next to gaussian blur.

the blending options window will appear. reduce the blur's opacity to 50% and click ok. next, we'll create a gold-leaftexture that we'll apply to your logo, symbol or text. click the new layer icon to make a new layer. if your foreground and background colors aren't black and white respectively, press "d" on your keyboard. click the background color and type in: 8 7 6 8 1 e. then, click ok. notice, your background color is the the color you just typed in. go to filter, render and clouds.

go back to filter and filter gallery. the same glass filter and settings that youused earlier will open. click ok to apply it to the "clouds" texture. let's brightenit a bit. click the adjustment layer icon and click brightness/contrast. click the clipping mask icon, which makes the adjustment layer clip or restrict itself to effect just theone layer beneath it in the layers panel. if we didn't clip it, the adjustment layerwould effect all the layers below it. increase the brightness: 40%. open a black & whitegraphic you'd like to make into gold-leaf.

you can also use text if you like. if youdo use text, make its color white. if your graphic is black on a white background, we need to invert it. to do this, press ctrl or cmd + i. go to select and color range. choose "highlights" and click ok. this makes a selection of its shape. press ctrl or cmd + j to cut and copy the shape onto its own layer. drag it onto the tab ofyour document and without releasing your mouse or pen, drag it down onto the image and release. to center it, press ctrl or cmd + a to select it all

and click the "align horizontal centers" icon and the "align vertical centers" icon. to deselect it, press ctrl or cmd + d. to resize it, open your transform tool by pressing ctrl or cmd + t. go to a corner and when yousee a diagonal, double-arrow, press and hold alt or option + shift as you drag it out orin. if you want to slide it up or down, press the up or down arrow key on your keyboard. then, press enter or return. change its blend mode to overlay.

ctrl-click or cmd-click onthe thumbnail of the logo or text to make a selection of its shape. click the thumbnailof the texture to make it active and click the layer mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection next to the texture. to bring more attention to your logo or text, we'll add an outer glow to it. double-click on its thumbnail, which makes the layer active andopens its layer style window. click "outer glow". change its blend mode to "linear dodge"and its opacity between 25 to 30%.

make the noise approximately 35% and the size: 185pixels. then, click ok. i want to lighten the shadow reflections on the gold leaf, but keep the highlights and mid-tones, as is.. to do this, first, make a composite snapshotof your image by pressing ctrl + shift + alt + e on windows or cmd + shift + option + e on a mac. ctrl-click or cmd-click on the thumbnail of your logo or text to make a selection ofits shape. click the layer mask icon to make a layer mask of the selection next to thecomposite snapshot. make the composite snapshot active

and go to image, adjustments and shadows/highlights. slide the shadow amount to 100% and click ok. repeat these steps three or four timesto increasingly lighten the shadows. this is marty from blue lightning tv. thanks for watching!

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